The Mexican Runner is famous in the Twitch community for being an avid Nintendo fan. How big of a fan is he? Well, he’s set out on a quest to beat every single licensed NES game in an event he’s dubbed “NESMania.”

Brian Vigneault, 35 year-old father of three, has passed away from unknown causes after live streaming World of Tanks for 22 hours straight. Vigneault was live streaming in order to raise money for the Make-A-Wish foundation and fans report that it wasn’t uncommon for him to be streaming 20 hours a day a few days a week.

Stream moderators report that Vigneault got up to have a smoke about 22 hours into his stream, at 3:30AM CST. When he didn’t come back, viewers assumed that he had fallen asleep. However, the next day when a friend sent him a message to ask him a question, a detective from the Virginia Beach police responded and said they were investigating the death of Vigneault.

Creating an ID is rather simple. Just sign into your main account, click “User ID” and type in something that’s six characters or more. Unfortunately, it looks like you can’t capitalize your ID, so xXMarioFanXx is a no-go.

Those looking forward to getting a taste of Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Wildlands before the game releases now have the chance to do so this week. Pre-loading for the open beta is now available on Ubisoft’s UPlay client, while Xbox One and PS4 players will have to wait until tomorrow to see the updates for their respective stores. The download appears to be 23.55GB in size.

The open beta doesn’t start until February 23, so you’ve got a handful of days to get this game downloaded if you’re on a slow connection or you want to have it ready to go to make the most of the week the game will be available. The beta will end on February 27.

This new open beta will feature much of the same content that was available in the closed beta, but a new province called Montuyoc will be available to roam around in ahead of the game’s launch on March 7.

The PlayStation Vita was one of the most criminally undersupported consoles of its time. Sony got everything about the Vita right except for a handful of crucial things that ended up killing any mainstream appeal it had.

First up, proprietary memory was too expensive. Sometimes more than triple the cost of a microSD card, which is basically what Vita memory was. Secondly, beyond the initial launch games, Sony forgot to make a compelling experience for the handheld. It lacked Monster Hunter which is now firmly entrenched on the Nintendo 3DS. A year into the life of the Vita and all you had to look forward to were re-releases of PC indie games.

From the portfolio of 3D Concept Designer Erik San Juan comes more than 35 images of Sony Santa Monica’s cancelled PlayStation 4 exclusive. San Juan’s role on the unnamed project was Visual Development/Character Modelling. Here’s his description of the job:

“Led the Concept Art incubation team for 2 years and later the Character Concept Art team while in full production. Provided 2D/3D concept art and models for a new PS4 IP in development which was later cancelled.”

According to Nerd Leaks, the game would’ve been set sometime in the future, “maybe it is set in 2034,” they posit. The game would’ve featured characters named August, Donovan, and NightHorse. Enemies might’ve been “skeletal monsters with long arms.” Another interesting tidbit from their leak is that players would’ve been given the ability to scan creatures to learn more about them.

Some of the information from the leak is backed up by the various concept art we’ve gathered in the gallery below. Take a look for yourself and dream of what could’ve been!

The first thing we’re shown is the console’s screen and a pair of Joy-Cons, the system’s primary controllers, sitting snugly next to it. Otherwise that’s it. The user who posted the pictures, “hiphoptherobot,” have also posted a video of them setting up the console and a picture of the final result. You can find the video below and a few pictures in the gallery.

Every new generation of console has teaser games that are shown alongside the console reveal that never come to fruition. Just this generation we have Scalebound on the Xbox side of things, a Platinum Games-developed title that was supposed to be an Xbox One-exclusive RPG. With its cancellation, we’re left wondering what happened on the PS4 side of things.

Capcom teased Deep Down as a PlayStation 4 exclusive title all the way back in 2013 when the PlayStation 4 was first unveiled. The title was advertised as a working title and the game will use Capcom’s Panta Rhei engine. Here’s how Capcom describes it:

“Panta Rhei” supports the latest graphics, enhances work flow to bring down development costs, and improves development efficiency in order to raise game quality.

From what we’ve seen of the game, it appears to be a co-op multiplayer dungeon crawler with combat that is similar to Dragon’s Dogma or a less difficult Dark Souls. Capcom’s original trailer for the game heads this article and it was truly something to be excited about for many gamers. We just never expected it to be the vaporware that it has become, since Capcom has showcased a lot of gameplay.

There were rumors that Capcom was experimenting with a free-to-play model for the game, something that would be similar to Let It Die’s model of providing access to the game for free, but charging for conveniences like revives and other boosts while playing the game. It’s been three years and we haven’t heard a peep out of Capcom about this game, until today.

With the package lost, Byuu now wants to reimburse the person who sent them the games, Ironically, that person was a collector, so some of those games may be irreplaceable. Some of the games included in the lost shipment were Vampire’s Kiss, Incantation, Hagane, and various Mega Man titles.

Now that the package has been lost, Byuu’s left without too many options. For the time being, they’ve taken put a stopper on the project.

Arktika

Arktika is perhaps the most polished game on this list for those looking to see what the future of VR gaming holds. Metro creator 4A Games is working on this one and it’s an action-oriented shooter that has a touch of survival horror thrown in.

The game will be compatible with Oculus Touch as well, which means you’ll be able to reload with hand gestures and get haptic feedback with each shot you take.

Essence

While describing a game as a walking simulator right now is usually considered something of a disparagement, that’s going to change with VR in the future. A walking simulator through a world you can experience in the same manner as your own is worth experiencing even for the most impatient gamer, which is why games like Essence will prove to be popular.

This game was crowd-funded and is supposed to be released in March, but there are rumors it could be pushed back until October. The world of the game will feature huge monoliths and worldbuilding that hearkens back to the amazing landscapes found in The Last Guardian and other exploration-driven games.

Fallout 4

There aren’t very many high profile games that support VR right now, but Fallout 4 might be the first open world RPG that you can actually roam around in. Bethesda is working on a VR version of Fallout 4, but rumors suggest that the development of the VR version has been delayed as the studio works on The Elder Scrolls 6.

The current tech demo version that’s available isn’t that great, but given that it’s only a test of whether the idea is feasible means it’s no where near a playable state or the polish of a finished game.

Syren

The 3D revolution in gaming made the current open-world game phenomenon possible and it’s my bet that the VR revolution will revitalize the survival horror genre. Resident Evil 7 finally takes the series back to its roots with an amazing VR experience and you can bet indie developers aren’t resting on their laurels.

Syren is from developer Hammerhead and promises to be one of the scariest games for VR to be released. A group of scientists have discovered an ancient civilization of mermaids and have started experimenting with them, but it all goes wrong and suddenly you’re having to escape these horrible creations.

Panoptic

This one turns the idea of VR on its head by pitting the person in VR against another person playing on PC. The two-player game sees the VR person acting as a floating god-like creature with a slow firing laser who is attempting to take out the PC player. The PC player has no way to fight back and has to use their wits to hide from the VR player while attempting to get to the top of a tower to disable the player.

It’s an interesting take on cat and mouse and one of the games that you have to get if you have the HTC Vive.

When the Oculus Rift Kickstarter got underway and funded in less than a few days, I knew the future of VR was upon us. Virtual reality is something that gamers have been obsessed with since gaming was a thing. The thought of being able to put on a headset and enter a completely different one is a compelling one, but in order for the new tech to move forward, there are going to be clear winners in this space.

So far, it’s not looking like Oculus Rift is shaping up to be the virtual reality forerunner that we all thought it would be several years ago. Granted, Oculus Rift generated a lot of ire from hardcore PC gamers after it was acquired by Facebook, but according to a recent report that revealed units sold for each type of VR, it’s lagging well behind the HTC Vive that’s backed by Valve.

Ready, fight?

Well, modder HdHereidme seems to miss those days as he’s enabled a splitscreen mode in The Last of Us. Now, we says enabled because the actual mode exists within the game’s code. According to HdHereidme, this is a leftover from the Uncharted 3.

YouTube user Freako gives us a rundown of the mod in a recent video. While it works, it doesn’t exactly function well. For one, if player 1 walks through a door before player 2 gets through it, the latter is stuck on the other side of the door without a way to get in. Furthermore, certain actions will cause the game to crash. Player 2 doesn’t even have access to a reticle.

So yeah, the feature is incredibly rough and wasn’t meant to see the light of day, but for avid, interested parties, this is a nice little thing you can use to play with friends or loved ones.

But what about those projects that talked big and promised a lot, but failed to deliver? Unforunately, there have been a lot of those to litter the highway to 2017. Let’s take a look at some of the highest-profile gaming Kickstarters that ultimately failed. We’re leaving Ouya off this list because it’s been done to death. Instead, we’ll focus on actual games.

Yogventures!

This one gathered more than half a million dollars in funding before vanishing, but not quite overnight. People backed this one because it had the name of a popular cast of YouTubers tied to the project, but the development team slated to work on the game was under-experienced and the game was over-promised. It was supposed to be released in December of 2012, but after a spat with the developers it was abruptly cancelled and backers were never offered refunds.

Unwritten: That Which Happened

Unwritten: That Which Happened got a lot of press when it debuted in 2013, namely because the developer Joe Houston had a good pedigree and came from a recognized development studio. He announced the game as an indie project and collected more than $78,000 from backers before updates started to run dry.

The last update from the dev was a whopping three years ago and it mentions medical expenses in his family that the Kickstarter money eventually was used to cover. He doesn’t specifically mention cancelling the project, but does admit the money is gone and he’s not working on it. Given that the last update was over three years ago, it’s safe to say this sheep has been fleeced.

Clang

This one has the embarrassing effect of smearing sci-fi and historical fiction author Neal Stephenson’s name along with it. Stephenson appears in the Kickstarter pledge video, asking enthusiastic video game fans to consider donating to his new game Clang, which he promises will feature realistic medieval weaponry physics that aren’t found in other games.

The Kickstarter collected more than $500,000 to create the game and eventually a tech demo was produced, but the team severely underestimated the cost it would take to make the game and eventually the whole project was canned.

Godus

One of gaming’s most notable hype men couldn’t resist the allure of Kickstarter back when it was fresh and unspoiled in the minds of gamers everywhere. Peter Molyneux took the the platform with the above pitch for Godus, which he promised would be a return to the God Game genre that everyone wanted to see.

Given his pedigree on titles like Populous, Black & White, Fable, and Dungeon Keeper, gamers lined up to hand Molyneux their hard-earned cash. What they got was a poorly developed clickfest that put mobile first thanks to the microtransactions that were liberally sprinkled throughout the experience. Molyneux was publicly lambasted as a pathological liar thanks to this game and has publicly admitted that during the final hours of the Kickstarter, his team was promising anything they could to reach the goal line.

Shadow of the Eternals

Shadow of the Eternals was billed as a spiritual successor to the Eternal Darkness series that was so popular on Nintendo 64. Dennis Dyack and Precursor Games revealed the Kickstarter, but the shadiness of the presentation and the controversy surrounding Dyack soon brought to light just how failed this project really was from the beginning.

Precursor Games promised Wii U fans just about everything they could think of to get them to fund the game, but still the Kickstarter didn’t manage to reach half of its goal so the project wasn’t actively funded. Precusor Games tried at least two more times to get the game crowdfunded, but enough people saw through the bullshit to stay away.

Fire Emblem Heroes is Nintendo’s newest mobile game, bringing the long-running strategy RPG series onto a new platform. It’s an interesting game from Nintendo that has a very archaic in-app purchase system that doesn’t really benefit the player that much. While Nintendo wants you to fork over your cash with this free-to-play game, players have very little incentive to do so right now.

Here’s how to make the most of your time with Fire Emblem Heroes, all without spending a dime.

Play the maps on all difficulty levels.

When you first get started with the game, you’ll be doing story maps on Normal difficulty level. They’re pretty basic and easy to complete and you won’t have to worry too much about the team you put together at first, since you’ll have a random selection of heroes the game starts you with.

You get 1 orb for every story mission you complete on each difficulty level. That means once you’ve collected all 45 orbs from the Normal modes, you can get the same for Hard and Lunatic difficulties. You need at least 20 orbs to do a proper full summon, so you’ll want to do this pretty quickly.

Know the strength of the heroes you have.

The heroes that you can summon in the game aren’t created equal. In fact, there are some that are downright godlike while others that can barely make a dent in enemies even with their full levels. To know the full strength of the heroes you’re using, be sure to consult this Fire Emblem Heroes Wikia page.

Compare stats between heroes you summon.

Don’t fret if you perform a summon and find you’ve summoned a hero that you already have in your retinue. Compare the stats between the two and you might see that one has better numbers than the other. Keep the hero with better stats and either merge the other hero into your current one for an SP gain or sell it. If you’ve already leveled up the hero, you’ll probably want to merge it.

Always compose a team with a mix of strengths.

The battle system in Fire Emblem Heroes is easy to understand, but hard to master with so many different elements. You’ll need to pay attention to your mix of colors and weapons to know which are strong against which and if you see you’re taking on a chapter that has a lot of one color, you may want to stack the deck with your team of the stronger color to help you win the fight.

Bait your enemies.

On the battle screen you have the option of showing the Danger Zone, or the range in which the AI units will begin attacking you. By placing a strong unit first, the AI units will go after this unit, leaving your weaker mage and auxiliary units like Ninja and Archer free to go to town without worrying about getting stomped early on.

Don’t forget to upgrade your castle.

On the main homescreen of the game there’s a little green castle with a plus sign next to it. Click this button to be taken to the castle upgrade page, where you’ll be offered several different upgrades for orbs. The first upgrade is a 20% bonus to the EXP earned in battle and the upgrade continues at 20% levels for each orb you spend. You should therefore upgrade your castle as quickly as possible to reap those EXP benefits.

Don’t forget to teach your heroes skills.

As you level your heroes in battle, they’ll slowly gain SP. Skill Points can be used to purchase new skills and abilities for your heroes, giving them special perks according to they’re type and color. Sometimes these perks are providing extra resistance to allies, health, or evel extra damage after a unit has attacked.

Be sure to do the new special map every day.

The Special maps are time-limited maps that usually award a new character every day. Therefore you’ll need to play every day in order to unlock a new character without paying anything. You’ll get two chances to unlock the character thanks to a Normal and a Hard map being available. Normal characters are usually two or three stars, while you’ll have a higher chance of winning a four star and above character from the Hard maps.

Make multiple teams and level them up.

While it’s tempting to focus on your core set of four characters that you get when you start the game, don’t forget that you can have multiple teams running at one time. This comes in really handy when you’re trying to level up your summons, so be sure to take advantage of this feature.

Don’t forget to unlock character potential at level 20.

Once you have characters at level 20, you can unlock their growth potential by using items you’ve acquired through completing campaigns, duels, and training tower levels. This works by deleveling your character back down to level 1, but they’ll start with higher stats than they started with when you got them.

One of the advantages of the PS4 Pro is that it allows developers to improve the overall performance of some of their games, regardless of whether or not you’re gaming on a 4K TV. The downside to that is developers needed to patch their games to take advantage of some of the Pro’s additional power. With the upcoming PS4 firmware 4.50, that’s changing slightly.

Let’s face it, Mega Man has seen better days. From the abysmal mobile ports Capcom released a few weeks ago, Mega Man Legends 3 being cancelled a while back, the Blue Bomber just can’t catch a break. Except when he was in Smash Bros for Wii U and 3DS; that was pretty cool.

Regardless, Peter Sjöstrand has been hard at work developing what they call Mega Man 2.5D, complete with an awesome anime intro. This Mega Man is most likely the best version of Mega Man we’ll see for a while. Why do we say that? Well, here are some of the features:

• Unique, 2.5D gameplay
• Vs Mode
• Achievements
• 2-player Co-Op

A 2.5D take on Mega Man is intriguing enough, but actually seeing the execution is what really sold us on the idea. Unlike most 2.5D games today where the background kinda look weird, Mega Man 2.5D plays with the camera orientation, placing it below the character in certain sections, or emphasizing objects that pop out just a little. The 2.5D is subtle enough so that it’s noticeable, but inoffensive. It also blends well with the classic Mega Man sprites.

From today until February 6th, FEZ will be “pay what you want” with all proceeds going to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

Following United States President Donald Trump’s ban on immigration from seven predominently Muslim countries, people around the world have been donating as much as they possibly can to stand up to what they consider to be an injustice. In just in one, the ACLU managed to raise $20 million from donations made by people who want to join the fight.

The NES Classic is a great piece of nostalgia, but it launched with only a handful of games. A group of hackers have teamed up to rectify that, releasing a new tool called Hakchi. The latest release of Hakchi 2.11 now has the ability to create a folder system to support a much wider variety of games. This turns it into a true emulator.